Spotify, a political marketing tool

For those who do not know this service, Spotify is an application used for the playback of music via streaming that allows us to listen to countless musical themes. It is not just a great music catalog, it works on a real social network ecosystem that has been implemented with the recent introduction of third party applications. It is available for both PC, laptop, and mobile devices. Simply put, it is not necessary to download a song to listen to it. And what could this be for in a political campaign? Why should a campaign manager saturated with marketing or communication actions be heeded? Let’s look at the visionary example of American campaigns.

Barack Obama’s campaign team has presented its musical list for the 2012 election campaign, a public playlist with music to be played in campaign events. In addition, have asked followers of various social networks in which they have profile to suggest songs to add. You can buy real spotify followers from this website. Not surprisingly, the list includes “Let’s Stay Together,” the Al Green classic that hummed in an “impromptu” and has since experienced a spectacular increase in sales. The team that works for Obama has been dedicated to making a list that includes a variety of artists, diversity of styles and generations of musicians, ranging from Wilco, Arcade Fire, U2, Electric Light Orchestra. Some of the themes, Like “We take care of our own” by Bruce Springsteen, have the clear intention of linking the music with the messages of the campaign. And we highlight the team that works for Obama because personally we find it very difficult to imagine the president of the United States choosing a song by Ricky Martin.

At the time of writing, the list had more than 12,696 subscribers, highlighting an important component of Spotify: the ability to spread the music (and the message behind the music) quickly. Just as using Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr can help spread campaign messages between followers and followers of our followers, Spotify users who listen to or subscribe to the campaign’s “playlist” can also easily share it with their environment Society. You can use this website too for buy real soundcloud favorites, if you using soundcloud apps.

Obama’s staff has not been the first or the only to carry out this initiative, which will presumably be his opponent for the Mitt Romney relection, has also created a list in Spotify. But as is often the case, the size of the character and the media exposure that the president of the United States has, makes any initiative they employ has a great echo. Like when you joined Forsquare, Instagram, Tumblr, or when you hung out on Google+.

Obama playlist

Arguments in favor (and some against.)

Since the beginning of this application, David Cameron’s party has made its first ads on Spotify in 2009. Since 2010, users of the “free” version have been able to listen to various spots in the middle of their favorite songs, but the hiring of Commercials has two elements against. The first one, can be annoying for certain users that can be considered invasive, and it should be added that “only” reach users of the “free” version, users who pay the fee of € 4.99 / month or 9 , 99 € / month do not receive the message because these versions do not have ads. The second element is as follows: from our ignorance of the algorithm that uses Spotify to choose the ads that each user receives, it seems complicated to hit the right target. Although the integration of the music service with the giant Facebook surely improves the results, (more information = more possibilities to hit, or not).

Music as a message. Throughout history music has been a tool that has accompanied the political scene, whether in the form of anthem, protest song, advertising jingle. Spotify can be conceived as one more tool to convey a message. Obama’s list seems to be very elaborate with a variety of styles spread over different musical decades, but there is also room for messages devoted to patriotism, optimism, hope, future.